Or better yet, claustrophobic paranoids. That's exactly how I felt yesterday, the first day of a new school year. It seems that everything's suddenly blown to extreme proportions. There's a lot of people, new and old, and it seems that, in one way or another, someone's bound to recognize you. Or, in my case, you're anxious to see someone who recognizes you and feels bad because there isn't. And there's just too many people packing an under-renovation SJ Walk. If you know just too many people - yes, that many people - you might not just escape the famous corridor. Mon hasn't, but I felt the need to drag him.

There wasn't anything spectacula with the start of my sophomore year, though. I went home last night with a splitting headache and thought the first term would be really boring. (And I mean yawn-yawn boring.) I slept at around nine last night and thought I didn't have much to do yet. But that's what's expected, actually.

Rewind to yesterday morning, and I stepped in the campus without much hesitation. I knew I had blockmates as classmates in some of my classes: John, Cuyeg, Joy and Dhi were with me in both Earth Science classes, and MC was also on the lecture equivalent. After meeting with Kevin and Jino early in the morning - they were on their way to a reattempt of Algebra class, and I found out that Kevin's my classmate in Computer class - I went up to M308 and realized I had Gaby as classmate for Religion 2 class.

Oh, and Anne (from Sociology class) and Kim (from Biology class, better known as the one responsible for the ribbon that went to Kizia's birthday gift) was also there. And a lot of connections. It seems that everyone who's there have been my classmate somewhere, somehow, one way or another.

Our teacher there has, if I remember correctly, some reputation - Sir Puno. I remember that he's offered the only two Religion 2 classes last term, and Marcia was having a hard time getting through to the paraphrased questions. (He's known for just that - and he even warned us.) Our first class had a smattering of references to The Little Prince, among others (and then I could go back to the ribbon, and then back to Kizia, but anyway) to explain his policies. In fact, we aren't even finished with the explanations - we don't even have a copy of the syllabus yet.

The next class, Filipino 2, is a bit connection-based. Since I'm stuck in M308 for entire mornings, I'll be freezing slightly to death - and so will second-degree friends Thana (did I get that right?) and Paolo, connected through Gaby. Our teacher there happens to be Miss Ayie, fondly remembered (if she is) as the one who facilitated the round-robin introductions between the block during LPEP. She speaks a smattering of gay lingo, complete with another warning, amied at some students, of apparent culture shock compared to a probable formality in Filipino 1 class. Even I got to lead the prayer because I greeted her first. "Uy, si Miss Ayie!" I said pretty quietly compared to the others. I got noticed, still.

My worries, though, would be the fact that I might not be (initially) comfortable with my groupmates, because we'll be doing a similar smattering of writing and reading - and a research paper.

John's also my classmate in Economics class, so it serves as a surprise that six other blockmates would be there: Toni came in and asked around for class confirmations, and Cuyeg also announced something similar - and he had Kim, Malia, Sara, Lau and Jaja along with him. Our teacher in that class - it's another change in the published ones, so we had Sir Asuncion. He seems pretty new, simply because he's currently taking his masters as DLSU and had a lot of food-related metaphors like bite-sized in tow. Immediately I snapped Cuyeg up as a partner for our fifteen-newspaper-clippings project complete with analyses based on economic theories we haven't started discussing yet.

After the early dismissal, Cuyeg, Joy and Dhi was torn between dropping Earth Sciences lab and otherwise. It's Miss Enriquez anyway - she's got a reputation, since apparently some blockmates (was it Jaja or Jill, or both?) had a hard time and got pretty low grades. Oh, but there was jubilation and a collective sigh of relief as we confirmed that we had another teacher.

Miss Natividad is actually a Physics teacher who's forced to teach the class to the remaining few who haven't. (Thanks to - another terminology hoopla from Miss Ayie - the Lasallian Pedagogical Framework Towards Transformative Learning, which simply means retooled classes for frosh students aimed to make us look like we're not spoonfeeding anyone, we're the last ones to take Earth Sciences class before it gets totally replaced by Physics class with a 50% passing rate.) She was quick to admit that the class was boring, and even announced a few field trips - like she did today, in Earth Science lecture class, which she also handled.

Oh, and Dhi got booted out of our groups by default somehow. Strictly four, not five. Or, strictly five, not six. But she seemed okay with the idea. She's got connections.

Fast-forward to this morning, and I learned that it isn't just me and Kevin at Computer class. Ian's face showed up at the G404 door and I got the cue. As if on cue as well, Jom became our classmate, like he's poised to ruin our terms, but thankfully he's quiet - or he has to be quiet. And Mary was also there, which rendered a seat we reserved for Kevin quite useless.

Our teacher in the class, Sir Camua, seemed relaxing and comforting (right), although minutes ago me, Tracy and John were discussing the differenced between him and that other teacher, Sir Narvaez. Both have too many plus points to make a sweet, short decision.

Toni also said yesterday that we're classmates in English 3 class - and, aside from that, I only know Ralph from a previous class. You know, he who ceremoniously stumbled in an edition of Digital LG Quiz. Our teacher there was Miss Plata, who actually wrote our English 2 book, and she was quick to remind us of what to do. And, our introductions aren't finished yet.

We aren't supposed to introduce ourselves, though. We are supposed to introduce another person - and I, rather than turn automatically to Toni for support, went with an unknown person - and to Airra. She's that confessed introvert-slash-otaku who writes and does therapy (if that's the right term) and she got me talking without her knowing it. (Or, maybe it's because I love to talk.)

But it's hard to make speeches in a much colder classroom, and basically everyone who already got a go stuttered while shivering. We were dismissed ten minutes earlier because nobody can concentrate on anything other than rubbing their hands together to create friction.

Isn't this a long entry already?

Change has begun to make a killing early in the term. Martin passed by, apparently, yesterday and I haven't spotted him a bit. (So far his ID still works.) Jana's rushing around subjects to drop since she shifted, and she just realized she spent a fairly large amount of money for classes that aren't in her new course flowchart. People are still borrowing my Economics book, like Ale just today, and almost Jana (who, by the way, sports what Huey called an indian-girl look).

I also saw a few too many people - Les adjusting yesterday, Steph who's suddenly candidate in some pageant, Isah who's looks prettier than before - and I'm talking to the same people. (So what change was I talking about again?) Clarence on tomorrow's concert ("may GA kami nun!"), Ariane on her issues, and the four times I bumped into Kizia within the past two days...

...but I wonder why I feel like this term isn't going to be any spectacular like before. Okay, it seems boring. But maybe it's going to be exciting much later - especially with me becoming, among all things, vice president of the FAST 2005 Legislative Assembly core's National Affairs committee. So I was still waving at Nadia - or she was still waving at me.

And by now I might have lost your attention. This is what a lack of time does.

But at least now we aren't those frosh who wear too much, trying to make good impressions on the upperclassmen like us - and yet, we don't.